Barking

One of our cavs, Fred, begins barking incessantly as soon as I place his harness on him for the morning walk. His bark is loud and piercing, and while I'm putting the harness on his sibling, Ginger, he barks right in my ear.

While the two are actually walking, the barking ceases, but when we arrive home, and I begin removing their harnesses, Fred starts yapping loudly again.

I've tried several ways to quiet him, including holding his muzzle shut while saying "no", a command he understands. He continues to yap and bark for a few minutes, however.

Is he excited about going outside? Is he excited about returning home? Is he disappointed that he couldn't catch a certain rabbit that runs around the yard?

Any advice will be appreciated.

Thanks,

Roy in New Mexico

Hi Roy

You have my sympathy - I'm dealing with my first noisy Cavalier, having had 5 earlier ones who were pretty quiet! My Ruby also barks with excitement at the sight of her harness, but will now be quiet when I say No, because she knows the harness won't get put on until she is quiet. At the start (she is a 6-year-old rescue I've had for 10 months) if she was very noisy I simply put the harness back, took off my coat and walked away - no walk until you are quiet. Now she knows that No means being quiet, then she gets her harness on and we go for our walk. She's fine when we get home, but then she's tired after an hour tearing round the park!

Don't know if that's any help! You may have to deal with Fred on his own for a bit - it's difficult to train one when you're trying to get two ready for their walk. An excited Cavalier bark does go right through your head, so I hope you can sort the problem soon!

Kate and Ruby

This can be a really frustrating problem! Two choices -- just ignore it and tolerate it, or expect to put in quite a considerable amount of time to address it. As Kate notes, you really need to train this separately. I'd approach it by training a 'quiet' or 'shush' command first, and when that is absolutely reliable, then use it when the barking starts. I wouldn't hold a dog's muzzle shut and say 'no' -- I don't think that will offer Fred the option of a desired behaviour and while we understand context and a word, for a dog simply saying 'no' in all sorts of contexts tends to maybe arbitrarily get a response now and then but they're not really learning anything or associating the 'no' with what a person wants. To put it in another context -- imagine something you want your spouse to do in the kitchen. Now just keep shouting 'no' at them whenever they do something that isn;t what you want. It is pretty hard for a person with a much larger brain than a dog to know what is wanted and is a preferable action! Trainers often use such an exercise to demonstrate to a class how hard it is for us; therefore how hard it is for them... and frustrating.

This is how renowned trainer Dr Ian Dunbar suggests training a speak/shush cue: http://www.dogstardaily.com/training/woofshush

He feels you need to train 'bark' before you can train 'shush' so the dog understands the contrast.

I think Fred is likely barking from anticipation first, and happiness at the end. He just associates good times with that harness .

Our Sophie was quite the barker when she was a puppy, especially when she was crated and I left the room! Oh, how she voiced her opinion on that!

I'd never had this problem with any of our previous dogs, so I searched the Internet. The solution I found that appealed and looked harmless while useful, is the one I tried. It worked very well for us.
As soon as she began barking, I squirted her with water from a spray pump bottle set to "stream". She didn't like that and learned rather quickly that barking was not the done thing.

Kate, Karlin and others,

Thanks for the good advice.

I decided to start with the "ignore" approach and it has worked! For the past three days, Fred's barking has decreased about 90%. He now sits calmly while I fasten the harness around him.

When I walk the two dogs together down our rural/desert road, Fred does bark at passing cars, at which time I use the "heel" command and tug gently on the dual leash, and he stops yapping.

Fred's sister Ginger, does very little barking, except at social occasions, at which time she is the "alpha" female, going from guest to guest to see if anyone will drop tidbits on the floor.

The rabbit still visits Fred and Ginger when they're in the outdoor pen, and this infuriates Fred who begins barking loudly. We think the rabbit is teasing him, because he knows Fred can't chase after him. (This would be dangerous considering the nearby cactus and critters.)

Roy and Jean

Charlie McFarlie used to bark at the TV when an animal was on the screen.
He especially liked dogs and horses, but would bark even at cartoon animals.
Funniest thing I've ever seen. He would jump off of the couch (in his younger days) and run over to the TV set, barking all the way.
The only way we could stop it was by changing the channel. He was like this, until he passed.
We could only watch Animal Planet when he was sleeping.

One last update...Fred's barking problem is now completely under control. I used the "spray bottle" method. After two or three sprays of water, Fred got the idea. Now, all I need to do is show him the bottle and he stops. (We still let him bark all he wants when he's outside, however.)

Thanks again to everyone,

Roy and Jean